Hearty

Very hearty.

That's to describe the cheers from the 20,000 in attendance last night. Granted, 20 K isn't quite half capacity, but with almost all of the fans wearing white promotional T-shirts or waving them like homer hankies, they created a festive, exuberant atmosphere at Kauffman Stadium, on a splendid night for baseball. And why not? The Royals, with their come-from-behind win, have now taken 7 of 9, their best stretch since June 2006. They're officially on a roll. Alex Gordon had his second straight multi-hit game and looked good extending his hit streak to five; Buddy Bell managed his bullpen to perfect results, using David Riske, Jimmy Gobble and Zack Greinke for one out each, then throwing down the hammer with Senior Smoke, Joakim Soria; the team got contributions from just about everyone in the lineup, but especially Mike Sweeney, whose two-run HR in the 6th tied the game (go read his quotes from Jeffrey Flanagan's column this morning -- you'll feel really good for him, and by extension, yourself); Odalis Perez, another quality start!!!

These are good times to be at the ballpark, in part because you just don't know how long the good times will last. Nay, great times. Right, John Buck?

You hear guys talking in here, "What’s our record? How far back are we from Minnesota?" You didn’t hear that in the past. We’d be satisfied if we got a couple of wins. Now you hear guys saying, "How far are we out of first place? Ten games? Oh, we can do that." The whole attitude of the team is different. We’re moving in the right direction.

Royals, 10.5 games behind Cleveland. Cliff Lee vs. Scott Elarton, 7 p.m. CT.

POSTSCRIPT: As Soria was mowing down the Indians (12 pitches, nine strikes), the Cleveland announcers started relaying stories about him pulled straight out of Albert Chen's SI article a couple weeks back. They went almost word for word, including the anecdote of Dayton Moore e-mailing Buddy Bell, "We've found our Papelbon," and Curtis Granderson's quote. They did this without attribution. Now, I'm going to echo something Bradford Doolittle said a few weeks ago that I think is very relevant in our day and age of convergence and multi-platforming: attribute your sources, broadcasters (or producers/research interns). It's not that hard -- on the Internet, a hyperlink will do; on the air, just four words, like, "From an SI article." That's all we ask.